


The Whirling Ways of Stars That Pass

by henrywinters



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, M/M, Mentions of War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henrywinters/pseuds/henrywinters
Summary: for the prompt: "Taekwoon was about to fly away to find something different [. . .] one fated meeting brought them together, now Taekwoon doesn't know his feelings."Set in the troubling years following the second world war, Taekwoon—a young airman of the Korean army—has returned home. He has come for a wedding; he has come begrudgingly. But what starts as a visit he would rather not have, turns to something much sweeter when old friendships are rekindled.





	The Whirling Ways of Stars That Pass

**Author's Note:**

> song inspirations:  
> [[one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMJFjjF_YAI)] [[two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD0MlG3-Tw)]
> 
> **disclaimer** : contains precisely 0% historical accuracy, but i hope it remains enjoyable all the same ♡

 

 

 

** I **

** The Arrival **

 

 

Taekwoon could not have picked a lovelier day to return. The autumnal sky gleamed an astonishing blue that was like the blue of the foam upon sea waves; one could see where the blue turned to white to grey so it was as if the sky was a maddening haze the color of old snow. And once stepped off the train, he was enveloped in a kaleidoscope of emotion as he realized the whirlwind that would soon follow.

 

“You’ve been away so long,” said his mother, with her aged hands cupped round his arm, tightly. It was the dead of autumn and yet, her hands burned cold against Taekwoon’s skin.

 

“Not too long,” he said.

 

“Very long,” was her reply.

 

He did not want to mention that it would have been longer— _much_ longer, indeed—had it not been for Hakyeon and the wedding. She was brazenly happy with her eyes like shining pebbles in the bright morning that Taekwoon could not, and certainly did not want to, bring so much reality back to her. So he smiled and he took her hand and led her through the train station, where the conductors went up and down all along the walkways and the air smelled of burning coal.

 

“We have no time,” his mother said, as they awaited a cab at the front of the station. “No time,” she repeated. “We’re going to be late.”

 

She was not speaking to Taekwoon, but rather spoke in the soft, far-away tone she adopted when she wanted to be heard, but not responded to. So he listened to her for a short while as the wind picked up and carried the exhaust of the street up into the air, until finally a cab pulled up in front of them. He tucked her into the front seat. From the back, he did not have to pretend to listen so closely.

 

“Do you think we have time to stop to eat?” she called back to him. It was a wonder her voice could take on such a worrisome tone all the time.

 

“Do _you_ think we have time?” he said in return.

 

“Oh, I don’t _know_.”

 

He smiled at her finicky hands and the way she sat, so very flummoxed, with her shoulder pressed against the inner door.

 

He said, “There will be food at the wedding,” in an attempt to calm her. “We can eat then.” And when that did not seem to persuade her, he said: “We have time to stop. Surely, we have time.”

 

So they stopped at a café between the train station and home and ordered a late breakfast that was light, so it would not interfere with their later plans; and all the time Taekwoon’s mother leaned over the table, very near to him, and asked all sorts of questions. She wanted to know who he had met in his time away, and why he had not written to her as eagerly as she had written to him. She wondered, did he feel different now that he was an airman?; and what did it mean to him to bear those silvery wings on the lapel of his flight jacket?—all questions he was sure she did not care to know the answers to, but rather had been prompted by others to ask. He answered what he thought he ought to and never mentioned the fearful, grueling nights spent over the sea between the clouds, with only his wing-mate and the spitfire that shielded him; and never, of course, of the mornings spent on the ground, learning what to do if ever there was war and if ever he found himself captured.

 

He had, after all, left to the air force with the only intent to be elsewhere. To leave the grey streets of home. If he allowed the two to merge it would all be for naught. So he spoke very little and said only what he thought he must, and then listened, with all the feigned interest of a son to his mother, of all the goings-on in his absence. There had been a few weddings and fewer children, but no deaths worth mentioning and, quite frankly, nothing of much importance at all. His mother seemed pleased by the news, for it meant her life had changed very little. Taekwoon felt a strange pang of regret at being the only change in all of her world.

 

“We have to hurry,” she said when the food came. “Your father wants to see you before you have to run off to be fitted.”

 

“Fitted? There isn’t any time to be fitted before the evening.”

 

“Hakyeon said he has a wondrous amount of suits for you to try on.”

 

Taekwoon laughed, pained and unsurprised. He looked away from his mother and out toward the street. It was so like Hakyeon to be utterly, utterly prepared.

 

*

 

After late breakfast, they had only enough time to pop into Taekwoon’s old home and exchange warm welcomes before Taekwoon was swept away by the current of the after-noon and brought to the familiar, green glowing lawn of Hakyeon’s family estate. It was not a very large estate, but a modest one, with a stretch of stone from the front of the house to the side of the road. Large trees shaded the lawn and kept its color dark and almost drear, but soft it was beneath Taekwoon’s feet when, at last, he left the cab and hurried to the door.

 

It was not Hakyeon who answered, but Jaehwan, who—like Taekwoon—had been one of the few to join the military right out of school.

 

“What are you doing here?” Taekwoon said, breathlessly, wondrously, so shocked by Jaehwan’s glittering eyes and at once too happy to speak. He wondered when Jaehwan had gotten in. Had he come early? Or was he as foolish as Taekwoon to wait until the very last moment.

 

“Surprised?” said Jaehwan. He reveled in the way Taekwoon looked at him. “It was supposed to be a surprise, so I hope you are!”

 

Taekwoon put a hand on Jaehwan’s shoulder and simply laughed, for he still could not speak. Then he let himself in. They stood in the foyer, two very old friends, both young with the weight of promised war hanging very heavy overhead; they stood like regiment men, too serious for the moment.

 

“You look good,” Jaehwan said.

 

“So do you,” Taekwoon said in return, but, really, it was not so. He had an idea that Jaehwan knew he had lied. The deep bruises beneath Jaehwan’s eyes were far too pronounced; the lines across his forehead like lines across a map. He looked tired and morally weak. Perhaps, he had not taken to the naval ships as easily as Taekwoon had taken to the sky.

 

“So, where is he?” Taekwoon asked.

 

It was then they heard Hakyeon plundering down the stairs down the hall. He came quickly, like a child who had been waiting for his promised gift.

 

When he came into the foyer, there was a split moment of realization as he took in the two men that stood there, looking back at him. Then, very suddenly, his face went frantic. His voice came rushed and worried.

 

He said, “Get over here—you’re _late_.”

 

Taekwoon smiled. Nothing had changed.

 

“First you don’t come back—not even for a visit—,” Hakyeon started, taking Taekwoon roughly by the arm. “—then you miss the fitting. Then you miss the calls. I’m surprised you even _made_ it back. And now—!”

 

All the time Jaehwan laughed quietly as Taekwoon accepted, and took, the verbal beating. He knew, in some not-so-distant way, that he deserved it. When he had gone, he had not told a soul. He had, in fact, not told anyone until a week at the base, when the guilt had finally persisted long enough.

 

Hakyeon handed him an armful of suits. It was a long time Taekwoon stood in front of a full-length mirror, evaluating what he looked like this way and that way. He tried on one and then another, then another, and two more, until they settled on something wool, something brown, a little English with a bow-tie that made Taekwoon feel funny. But Hakyeon liked it, and so Taekwoon allowed it.

 

“It’s very modern,” Taekwoon commented, brushing imaginary lint from his shoulder. “Your mother is all right with that?”

 

“She only wants me married. She doesn’t care how.”

 

“Lovely woman,” Jaehwan quipped. “Where is she, anyway?”

 

“At the wedding hall,” said Hakyeon. He was not listening, but rather collecting all the items he would need to be dressed in. His arms overflowed with garments and coats and pressed, starched shirts made of very fine cotton.

 

“I’ll meet the both of you there,” he said, stopping to check his reflection in the hallway mirror. He looked back at Taekwoon. “You really look great.”

 

Taekwoon smiled, tight-lipped, and a little embarrassed.

 

“There’s a car out front that’ll take you to the hall. And,” he paused, just outside the door, “you’ll have to pick up another guest, you might remember him, Taekwoonie. Little Hyuk—from when we were kids?”

 

Taekwoon shrugged, haplessly.

 

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. The driver knows where he is. Just don’t be late, all right?”

 

He bid them an elated farewell; and very suddenly, in the way whirlwinds tend to be, Taekwoon and Jaehwan stood alone on the door-step, watching Hakyeon run across the lawn to a car that awaited him. It felt as if Taekwoon had been home but a moment, but already the sky had lost its preternatural morning glow and now stood stark white under an unforgiving sun.

 

“By the way,” began Jaehwan, “after the wedding and the reception, we’ll be going somewhere else, too.”

 

Taekwoon looked at him sternly. “Where?”

 

“To the cabins in the mountains! What do you say to that?”

 

Taekwoon said nothing at all.

 

 

  

** II **

** The Wedding **

 

It was outside a small, traditional home, quite unlike Hakyeon’s estate, that the driver came to a stop. He told the two in the back, “I’ll be but a minute,” and quickly crossed the lawn.

 

“Seriously,” Taekwoon said, once alone, turning to Jaehwan. “What are you doing back? Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I _did_ tell you. When you got here.” He grinned like a child with a secret. “But I’ve been back a while. I heard you weren’t writing, or that you were busy. Something about never returning any calls you got?” He smiled in a way that said, _it’s all right_ , when Taekwoon, burdened by the guilt, began to apologize. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be here a while more, anyway.”

 

“When do you go back?”

 

Jaehwan was quiet a moment. “When they need me.”

 

It was not so much what he had said, but the weight he had allowed the words to carry that pulled sharply at Taekwoon’s heart. There were very few reasons a sailor would return home when the military was in a state of paranoia; and following the second great war, paranoia was all that remained. Taekwoon wondered, deeply, if such paranoia had reached Jaehwan in a way it had not reached himself. He was too reluctant to ask, so relied on his own musings.

 

It was as they sat in a shared silence, this side of uncomfortable, that the driver came out of the house and hurried back to the car. He came alone. He came with a look on his face that made Taekwoon feel strange.

 

The driver put his head into the car and said to Jaehwan, “Sir, he requested you. For only a moment, he said.”

 

With a great huffing sigh, Jaehwan slipped out of the car; and it was Taekwoon now left alone, to drown in the quietude.

 

He waited for what seemed like a very long time.

 

“We’ll be late,” the driver said.

 

It was all anyone talked about in all the time Taekwoon had been back. Annoyed, he said stiffly, “It isn’t your fault, so does it really matter?”

 

Then, finally, Jaehwan came across the lawn with his hands in his trouser pockets. He walked with long, lackadaisical strides; and once to the car, he did not get in right away. Instead, he told the driver through the passenger window, “He’s going to get a cab. He’ll meet us there.” Then he climbed into the back and put himself delicately against the inner door. He looked more tired than ever.

 

“What’s up with the kid?” Taekwoon asked. He did not like the way Jaehwan closed his eyes nor the way he touched his temples. He did not like at all how meticulously calm he was.

 

“His father,” he said, as if it explained it all.

 

When Taekwoon whispered, quietly, “Oh,” they fell back into silence.

 

It was near the venue when Jaehwan said, “You really don’t remember him?” And when Taekwoon glanced at him with a look of confusion, he clarified, “Sanghyuk.”

 

“I don’t know. I might?” The name, so damn familiar, struck a chord buried deeply in the back of Taekwoon’s mind, but he could not, for the life of him, reach it.

 

“Maybe when you see him.”

 

Taekwoon agreed, “Maybe.”

 

“He’s the boy whose father fought the fascists.”

 

“All our fathers fought the fascists.”

 

“Yes, but his didn’t come back right in the head. It’s hard for Hyuk to leave him, you know? Anyway, he’ll be here later, I’m pretty sure.” Jaehwan looked out the window and saw they had arrived. “Now, come on. Before Hakyeon kills us both.”

 

*

 

What followed, then, was such an exuberant affair of color and sound that Taekwoon, use to the commotion, but quite uninvolved, sat stoic upon a bench with Jaehwan quiet beside him. But when, at last, the ceremony began, a touch of pride came to them both. Taekwoon found himself thick with emotion, his heart soaring up and up as the man he had known all his life married the woman none of them thought he ever would.

 

It was then, at quite the young age of twenty-two, that Taekwoon—who was not old at all—began to feel very old indeed.

 

He leaned close to Jaehwan and whispered, “Does this mean our childhood is over?” And what was meant to be taken lightly came as something with depth, austere in the quiet of the wedding hall.

 

“It was over a long time ago,” Jaehwan whispered in return.

 

 

 

 

At a quarter to the hour—a much later hour than he was scheduled to arrive—Sanghyuk ambled up the walkway to the venue. It was not a church, but a hall. It was a very handsome hall with decorated windows that reached up toward the ceilings and a staircase the color of summer cloud. He was the very last person to arrive and therefore was alone on that jarringly white autumnal after-noon. He was quite out of place and felt strange to be alone. But he knew better than to open any doors which led to the great hall, for he knew the ceremony must already be in order. If he was to enter, surely, he would disturb what great things were happening inside. So he waited alone, in the warmth, with the thickness of his jacket bringing beads of sweat to his temples.

 

It was not entirely his own fault that he arrived late, though it did not matter in the slightest. All that mattered was that it had happened at all. And what a humbling thing it was to be on the outside of a wedding, so far from the others; and what more with a rising bruise across your cheek where you had struck yourself by accident in a struggle against your own shell-shocked father. But it was all right now, Sanghyuk reminded himself. Nothing mattered but the ceremony at hand. And if he was late it meant the ceremony was nearly over, and soon, the doors would burst open and the hall would empty out onto that lonely street, where the trees touched the sky and the lawns spread out blindingly bright.

 

He comforted himself with the thought and sat, very carefully as not to ruin his trousers, on the cleanest looking step of all the stairs, and waited with a cigarette in his mouth.

 

While he waited, Sanghyuk thought, and he thought particularly hard of how he had not been so excited for the wedding itself, but for who it was that was supposed to attend. He had known Hakyeon all his life, as far back as he could remember, and even farther back to times he could _not_ remember, so it was that Sanghyuk was, of course, proud of him. But he was not easily moved. And to be moved by a wedding that was not his own seemed almost silly to him. Oh, but Taekwoon? That was a particular he had been waiting all summer for.

 

It was not that Sanghyuk and Taekwoon had grown up together. They had not even been remotely close. And Sanghyuk’s interest in him could easily be added up to childhood wonderment: being enthralled by someone much older, someone kinder, someone whose eyes were sharp as daggers, but whose smile could strike you dead. It had been, of course, a crush; one made from a great distance at that, for Sanghyuk had never been the type to tag along with others older than him, and like all crushes it had dwindled down to nothing over the years. But when Taekwoon had enlisted quite out of blue, leaving without so much as a good-by to his parents, it sparked something inside Sanghyuk. He had seen the photographs—Hakyeon had made sure to share them with nearly everyone—and Sanghyuk was no longer such a young boy. He knew a handsome man when he saw one. But, Taekwoon? Could the man in the photographs, in the airman uniform—a man that piloted jets over the sea—really be the same boy Sanghyuk had tailed from afar all those years before? He was eager to know.

 

He busied himself with such thoughts. Thoughts and thoughts and lots of them as his cigarette burned low and as, inside the venue, where Sanghyuk had no way of knowing, the ceremony started to end.

 

It was then that the doors of the hall came open. Sanghyuk bound to his feet. He was able to move out of the way before being trampled, and slipped round the side of the venue until at last the guests crowded the steps, all the cars pulling up along the road. Sanghyuk was able, then, to hide within the crowd and pretend he had been a part of them all the time.

 

He saw Hakyeon. He saw his bride. And he felt the same swell of pride that all the guests had felt at the sight of them, and thought what a shame it was that he had been late.

 

Lost in thought, Sanghyuk did not notice when Jaehwan came out of the crowd. He did not notice that he was alone. But he knew right away who it was that grabbed him when he heard a pulsing, almost high-pitched accusation in his ear.

 

“ _Where_ were you?”

 

“Here,” Sanghyuk said. He wriggled out of Jaehwan’s hold, but found himself right back within it. He was being shoved to a car by the road. “I was in the back.”

 

“Did you get here very late?”

 

“No, not late,” he lied.

 

“Get in”—Jaehwan closed him in the backseat—“we gotta wait for the others.”

 

_For Taekwoon_ , Sanghyuk wanted to ask. He said, instead, “For who?”

 

“For _me_ ,” said a voice Sanghyuk knew not to be Taekwoon’s.

 

He grinned as Hongbin, dressed nicer than anyone there, and who, with rose colored cheeks, popped his head into the car.

 

“I didn’t see you inside,” said Hongbin.

 

“And I didn’t see _you_ ,” Jaehwan said in return. He pinched the side of Hongbin’s neck. “I swear, the two of you... you’re like kids lost in a crowd. Did Hakyeon see you?” he asked no one in particular. “If he didn’t see you, he’ll have your head.”

 

He came into the car and did not wait for an answer. Jaehwan knew as well as the others that Hakyeon most likely did not see anyone at all. He started the car and explained, “We’ll have to meet up with everyone at the reception.”

 

They pulled away from the curb. Sanghyuk watched, with little interest, as little by little each car fell into a cadence and came away from the venue.

 

*

 

“What happened to your face?” was the first thing Hakyeon said. Then, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

 

With the tips of his fingers, Hakyeon touched the raised area on Sanghyuk’s cheek. He said nothing more on the matter, but there was enough said with his eyes that Sanghyuk, who felt all right after the matter, felt a pang of new embarrassment. He shied away.

 

“You look awesome together,” he said after a long pause. He motioned between the newlyweds. He liked the way they smiled at him, and how Hakyeon, who was more like a brother than anyone else in Sanghyuk’s life, wrapped him in an embrace.

 

“I’m real sorry about being late. You know sometimes things get a little—”

 

“It’s fine, Hyukie, don’t worry about it.”

 

“I’ll be around for everything else, at least.”

 

Hakyeon smiled at him. “Go get a drink. Get some ice for your cheek.” It was with a final touch to Sanghyuk’s face that Hakyeon moved away, and in his place, quite suddenly—so suddenly, in fact, that Sanghyuk walked right into him—Jaehwan all but materialized.

 

There was enough time to wonder if Jaehwan had been there all the time, (or if he had been standing behind Hakyeon; or if, perhaps, he had walked over just as Hakyeon had been walking away,) before Sanghyuk sputtered out an apology. It was not so much an apology for Jaehwan, but for Taekwoon who, with Jaehwan’s arm wrapped tightly round his arm, looked as if he had been dragged across the whole party. He looked neither interested nor _dis_ interested in Sanghyuk, but looked as if he had spotted someone—or some _thing—_ that was _almost_ worth mentioning to others. There was a soft hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

 

When Sanghyuk hastily apologized, Taekwoon said nothing in return. He looked very hard into Sanghyuk’s face in a way that Sanghyuk could remember from childhood. It was the icy coolness of his eyes, the dead-set way of his mouth, that left Sanghyuk drowning.

 

“You remember Taekwoon, don’t you, Hyukie?”

 

Too dumbfounded to respond, Sanghyuk continued to stare. It was Taekwoon who broke the silence with a barely audible, “I remember you.” He said so in a way that made Sanghyuk think he was not being spoken to, but rather Taekwoon was talking to himself.

 

“That’s nice,” Sanghyuk said weakly, ridiculously, feeling very silly. He was taken aback by how lovely Taekwoon looked in such a fine suit. It was a tad too large, but lovely all the same; and his hair, cut very short to his head, made his face look all the more austere. Sanghyuk was weak at once.

 

All around them, people were dancing. Some swayed, very nearly drunk already, with half empty glasses held away from their bodies as if afraid they would spill over at any moment. It was between all the commotion the three of them stood, sharing a silence that was prickling, maddeningly so, so it was that Sanghyuk became desperate to fill it. He wanted to be away from the crowd. He wanted to be somewhere quieter. He wanted to speak with Taekwoon without all the others around them. But he knew in order to do such a thing, he had to first calm the beating of his heart.

 

It was Jaehwan who moved first, and the two—still holding each other’s gaze—moved with him, absently, like moving parts of a flock. They knew where to go without having to look.

 

“What happened there?” Taekwoon asked softly, motioning with his glass to the raised area of Sanghyuk’s cheek.

 

“Just an accident.”

 

“Must have been a bad one.”

 

“Not _very_ bad.”

 

They had come to a table set off to the side. Couples were spread out all around them. First Sanghyuk sat, then Taekwoon; and it was then that Sanghyuk realized Jaehwan had slipped away somewhere; and it was only the two of them, alone, sharing that awful demanding silence.

 

“I was afraid that when I saw you, I wouldn’t be able to put a face to your name,” Taekwoon began, “but I _do_ remember you. You were so small the last I saw you.”

 

Sanghyuk ducked his head low. He could feel the warmth in his face. “It’s been a while.”

 

“How old are you now?”

 

“Seventeen,” he said, clearing his throat for what felt like the hundredth time. Why was his mouth so terribly dry?

 

“Starting university, then?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“You know”—Taekwoon leaned back in his chair with all the air of a man at ease—“I thought about coming back for college. Maybe I’ll still do it after I’m done.”

 

“Done with what?” asked Sanghyuk.

 

“With everything.” Taekwoon rose out of his chair. “Do you want a drink?”

 

Sanghyuk said that _yes_ , he did. Then, alone, he waited, and he looked around him and he saw from afar: Jaehwan, at the other end of the room. He was laughing with Hongbin, his face failing to reflect what joy he was pretending to feel. Sanghyuk felt a hint of concern that blazed, then burned out.

 

“Do you want to go with them?” Taekwoon asked, suddenly at Sanghyuk’s side. He had come with a bottle of wine and an extra glass. He was looking at Jaehwan.

 

“No,” Sanghyuk told him, and it was all that had to be said. Taekwoon sat down and poured their drinks.

 

Sanghyuk drank quickly. He asked, even quicker, before he could lose what courage he had mustered up: “Since you’re an airman now and all finished with training, well, you should know, right? If what everyone is saying is true.”

 

“What is everyone saying?”

 

“That war will happen.”

 

Taekwoon watched him carefully for what felt like a very long time. Until, at last, Sanghyuk whispered, “You don’t have to think up an answer. You can tell me.”

 

“Why do you want to know?”

 

“Wouldn’t _you_ want to know?”

 

Taekwoon smiled at that. “Are you thinking about enlisting?”

 

“No,” Sanghyuk said at once, too sharp to shrug off. He already knew what happened to men forced under extreme circumstances. He pulled away from the table and sat very far back in his chair as if trying to distance himself from any thought of enlistment. “I don’t want to, anyway. But maybe I’ll have to.”

 

“Maybe not.”

 

“Maybe not,” Sanghyuk echoed.

 

“For your sake, I hope not.”

 

And what did that mean? Sanghyuk wondered. He was too startled by the comment to ask.

 

*

They talked away the hours. They talked of nothing Sanghyuk had not heard already. He knew all about the military and what happened when the soldiers and the sailors and the airmen returned home. With them came a gripping loneliness akin to the sense of longing; he’d seen it in his own father’s eyes, and he saw it now in Taekwoon’s. But he would not mention it for fear of crossing what lines existed between them.

 

But it was lovely to talk. Sanghyuk had wondered endlessly of what it was like for Taekwoon who had up and left and never returned for so many years. Had he simply loved it so much that he did not want to come home? Or had he felt a sense of responsibility that permitted him from leaving? In the end, Sanghyuk was still unsure. Though he knew for fact that no matter how severe Taekwoon’s expression may be, he was a tender man. One with a laugh that carried on like a tune, open and kind and up for the taking. He laughed with his whole body. With his eyes and his mouth and his hands that would hit the table with manic rhythm, or ball into fists that dug into his lap, or even to come up to his face and hide the row of white pearls that was his teeth.

 

He was fervent in his joy, if only for the moment he had forgotten to be so cold.

 

*

 

“Should I walk you home?” Taekwoon asked at the end of the night.

 

Sanghyuk looked at him strangely.

 

“I know where you live,” he explained. “The driver went by and it isn’t far, right? Over there, somewhere—” he pointed between the birch trees that lined the street, towards a neighborhood where the lights still flickered even in the late hour.

 

“Actually,” laughed Sanghyuk, “I do.”

 

“I’ll walk you.”

 

“You don’t have to,” was what Sanghyuk said. But his heart—oh, his heart—soared. He knew Taekwoon would not take back the offer, and so fell into step with him quickly, quietly, without another word.

 

They both walked unsteadily. Too much to drink, Sanghyuk thought, but he also knew his nerves were riled. He felt giddy in the head. He felt so terribly young, there, beside Taekwoon who walked with his shoulders thrown back and his head held up as if he was still in uniform, forced to be proper even when drunk.

 

They were quiet a long while. But as they passed through the trees, heading down into the neighborhood, where the sidewalk curved as if leading far into someplace new, Sanghyuk lost his footing and nearly fell. He was saved by Taekwoon’s quick hand, reaching out and yanking him backward—and how embarrassing it was! His body burned. But how wonderful it felt to have Taekwoon hold him in that small way.

 

Sanghyuk pulled away quickly. He laughed, “Sorry.”

 

“I didn’t expect to spend all night with you,” Taekwoon said, rather out of the blue. He was not looking at Sanghyuk but at the sky, as if wishing to be elsewhere. “But I’m glad I met you again.”

 

“Are you talking to me or the stars?”

 

Taekwoon laughed breathlessly. “Were you always like this?”

 

Sanghyuk kicked at the ground, upsetting the pebbles. He stopped suddenly and thumbed over his shoulder at the only darkened house on all the street. “I’m here.”

 

“All right.”

 

“I guess, thanks for walking me?”

 

Taekwoon nodded, looking away, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He did not move right away. In fact, he did not move for a great long moment.

 

He said, not meeting Sanghyuk’s gaze, “I’m going to-morrow and um...”

 

“Already?”

 

“Hm?” His eyebrows pinched together. “No, no. I meant, I’m going to-morrow with Jaehwan and Hongbin. We’re going east to the mountains. For the weekend, you understand?”

 

Sanghyuk nodded as if, yes, he did. But he was curious. “And?”

 

“Why don’t you come along? We’re leaving in the morning. Does Jaehwan have your number?”

 

Sanghyuk said that he did; Taekwoon said he would call.

 

“If you want to go, that is.”

 

“I do.”

 

“Pack warm, all right? It gets cold up there at night.”

 

Sanghyuk promised he would. All the time he smiled. And he watched Taekwoon as he nodded to himself. Always nodding, he thought, as if lost in his own head. But then, strangely, Taekwoon seemed to draw closer. He came quickly, with his whole body thrust forward, his face angled just so—and Sanghyuk, quite unsure, thought maybe it was a kiss he was in search of.

 

It was all over before thoughts could form. It was as if Taekwoon remembered where he was and who he was and who it was he was leaning towards. He pulled himself upright. He shook his head very hard and murmured, as he started to walk away, “I’m drunk.”

 

Sanghyuk could not keep from grinning.

 

“Good-night,” Taekwoon called over his shoulder. He did not look at Sanghyuk again. But the feeling left was one of pure delight.

 

Sanghyuk would have spent all night by the sidewalk’s end, watching Taekwoon grow smaller in the distance. But it was cold and it was late, and he feared Taekwoon would turn round any moment and find him still standing there. So with a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth, he quietly slipped inside, where the house was quiet and dark and all there was to hear was the beating of his own heart.

 

 

 

** III **

** The Trip **

 

The drive to the mountains was not a long trip, but a jarring one. The road curved and spiraled upward, so it was like toeing the edge of a great cliff. But Taekwoon was at ease behind the wheel, his foot resting lightly on the gas as they made those wide, swerving curves, with the radio on and the windows all turned down. The air was sweeter there. It came in cool and clean and rustled the tall trees, bringing the smell of the wild through the windows. If he had not been driving, Taekwoon would have surely slept soundly with his face tipped toward the outside to breathe in all the goodness the wind carried. As it was, it was Sanghyuk who slept in much the way Taekwoon wished to, with Hongbin barely awake beside him.

 

Through the rear-view mirror, Taekwoon watched discretely as the young man in the back laid his head on his own shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest as if to keep warm. He slept most of the way. And most of the time, Taekwoon watched him, careful as not to jostle Sanghyuk awake when the trail turned sharply, or if a creature from the wood happened to scurry by. It was much like keeping one eye on the what lay ahead and one eye on what was kept behind him; and he thought himself very secretive until Jaehwan turned up the radio the slightest bit. He leaned over and asked in a peculiar tone, “Why do you keep staring at him?”

 

“At who?” Taekwoon dared ask.

 

“You think I’m an idiot? You know who.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“You don’t know?” Jaehwan deadpanned. He did not believe him, it was obvious.

 

“No, all right? Why do you care?”

 

“Oh, calm down. I’m not trying to bother you.” He sank back into his seat. “I just thought maybe you knew something I didn’t.”

 

Taekwoon chose to ignore that last bit. There was nothing more he could think to say. And what was there to say anyway? That Sanghyuk was a lot handsomer than he remembered? That he was easier to talk to than any of the boys put together? That in his drunken haze he had dared lean too close, too quickly, with all the yearning of a young schoolboy wishing to kiss a crush? It was terrible to think of, and worse to say aloud; he was very careful, then, to keep his eyes from wandering to the back again.

 

The cabin they were to rent for the evening was one that belonged to Hakyeon’s grandmother from long before the war. It was said to be a very old, weathered, cabin that stood alone amid the trees. It had been Hakyeon’s proposal of such a trip. Taekwoon was sure it was only because Hakyeon knew he would not be around to come too. He was off somewhere, very far, with his new bride; his mind not at all with them in the mountains. But by word from Jaehwan, his had not been a cruel intention, but rather meant to be a send-off for when Taekwoon and Jaehwan returned to their respective battalions; when all the weight of reality came back to them. And in that way, it was a kind gesture, albeit one Taekwoon did not accept well.

 

He did not like driving that winding road any more than he liked the way the woods looked as they came through them, kicking up earth into the windows as he came through a clearing too quickly. He heard the sleepy groans from the back-seat and knew he had failed in keeping the others asleep. Oh, it didn’t matter anymore, he thought, because at last they had arrived.

  
And the cabin was just as Hakyeon had said it would be.

 

There was rotted wood in some places and chipped away bits in others. The clearing smelled of earth after a long nightly rain and when one stepped out of the car, it was notable how far their feet sank into the ground, as if everything was far more sensitive where people did not often tread.

 

Hongbin came out of the car and reached upward, stretching onto the toes of his shoes. He turned back to Taekwoon and asked, “Do you like it?”

 

“Am I supposed to?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Taekwoon laughed lowly. “Then, yes, I like it.”

 

Jaehwan came out of the passenger side, hooking his arm round Sanghyuk’s drooping, wide shoulders. Is was that way they went up to the cabin and then inside, leaving Taekwoon beside the car where he lighted a cigarette. Hongbin lingered for a moment, but was quickly waved off. It was cold and Taekwoon did not need company.

 

He walked round the cabin and admired the trees. The browning of the foliage. He kicked up unearthed stones and watched as beetles scuttled away, digging deep into the earth. It was strange, sometimes, to be on the ground. And not only the ground, but to be so very close to the earth as he was then. He had lost sense of it over time. He lived on base now. He lived amid machines that howled in the sky, like roaring beasts from overhead. He knew only the paved runway, the smell of fuel cooking in the summer heat. Where he was then, where the ground breathed beneath him, was someplace so utterly new that he felt quite young there, alone, in the clearing. It was nearly a shame to have never acknowledged such a feeling before.

 

By the time he had gone inside, it looked as if they had all settled in. Bags lay open on the sofa. The floor of one of the two bedrooms was covered in quilts and other packed away belongings. They were not to stay very long in the cabin, but it seemed not to matter to Jaehwan who had already made up the beds that had otherwise been bare.

 

He explained when Taekwoon asked, “Do you really want to wait until to-night, when you’re cold and cranky?”

 

It was impossible to argue with such logic.

 

Taekwoon lay down on the sofa where the cushions harbored dust and smelled a little strange, but were soft against his head and his back. And he watched Jaehwan go about the rooms, carrying items to and fro, like a mother cleaning house. In the kitchen, out of sight, was Hongbin; and by the sounds of the clinking of glass, Taekwoon imagined he had found the wine or something just as good. But where had Sanghyuk gone to?

 

Taekwoon was tired. He was the faintest bit hung-over. So he did not want to get up to search for the lost boy, but it was the cinching in his belly so much like excitement at the prospect of being alone with him that pulled Taekwoon from the sofa and back on his feet.

 

He looked in the rooms, but did not find him. He peeked in the kitchen, but he was not there. And finally, as a last effort, he looked out the wide, curtain-less window of the foyer and could see, by way of the sun, Sanghyuk’s shadow on the back porch. He was outside in the cold, with a blanket wrapped round him, playing cards on the deck.

 

“Solitaire?” Taekwoon asked, coming to stand beside him.

 

“It’s the only game I know.”

 

Taekwoon watched him a short while. He put his hands in his pockets and fingered the box of cigarettes he felt there. He looked toward the sun that did not shine so brightly now that the cold was coming in. Then he walked in leisure steps all round the deck, as if pacing in circles round Sanghyuk’s card game.

 

He loitered. And he knew he was doing it, but could not, for the life of him, seem to stop.

 

Eventually, Sanghyuk glanced up at him and smiled. “You look like you feel good to-day.”

 

“Do I?”

 

“I thought you’d feel terrible after last night.”

 

“What do you mean?” he said, a trifle sharp.

 

“Well, we drank an awful lot, I think. I don’t feel very good or else I’d be inside with everybody else, but it’s too dark in there and I think I’ll fall asleep.”

 

Taekwoon thawed immediately. He did not, by any means, feel much better than Sanghyuk seemed to feel. But he wanted to at least pretend that he did. So he crouched by the cards and said, “There’s a game I can teach you, if you don’t already know it.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“War.”

 

“You’re kidding.”

 

Taekwoon shook his head. He was very serious until Sanghyuk, not serious at all, shoved him gently away with a smile, a soft laugh. He did not ask to be taught the game and he did not clear the cards away, but continued to play. Only now it was not strange to have Taekwoon pacing all round him. Taekwoon was able to take a seat on the deck stairs, watching Sanghyuk as he carefully picked and placed his cards; all the time smoking a cigarette with the smoke carried far away on the wind.

 

*

 

It was a slow day. One that was a necessity if the rest of the visit was going to be any good at all. It was decided without debate that Taekwoon and Jaehwan would take the one bedroom while Hongbin and Sanghyuk took the other. And it was in the quiet of the one room that Taekwoon closed up the windows and shut the door and let himself sleep away the after-noon. He woke late in the evening, when the sky was not as lighted and verged on dark. When he came out of the room, he found only Hongbin, and it was startlingly quiet.

 

Curled up in a chair by the door, Hongbin was reading. He looked up from his book for only a second, then looked away.

 

“Where are they?” Taekwoon asked, dizzy with sleep.

 

“Out somewhere.”

 

“Somewhere?”

 

“They wanted to hike around the trees.”

 

Taekwoon went to the window and looked out, but could not see them. “But the car’s gone.” He turned to Hongbin. “Why didn’t you go?”

 

“I didn’t feel like it.”

 

“Wanted to stay and wait for me?” Taekwoon pestered lightly.

 

“You wish.”

 

With a warm laugh, he ruffled Hongbin’s hair and went to the kitchen for something to eat.

 

It was after dark when the others returned. They came back cold with red bitten noses and bags of take-out from the town a dozen miles up the road. And how welcoming the smell of food was! They laid out the containers on a moth-eaten quilt taken from one of the bedrooms; and it was that way they talked into the night, talking of nothing and everything and all of it all at once. But eventually, when the food had been eaten and taken to the bins, conversation turned in the way Taekwoon had been expecting, but wishing all the time for it not to.

 

“When do you go back?” Sanghyuk asked quietly. He did not aim his question at one man in particular, but it was Taekwoon who answered.

 

“Not for a few days.”

 

“I thought you wanted to leave day after to-morrow,” said Jaehwan.

 

“Sure. But I’ll stay a little longer.”

 

“Change of heart?” he smiled.

 

Taekwoon made it a point not to look at Sanghyuk as he nodded, silently, to himself. But he could feel the other’s eyes bearing into him, deeply curious. He was not so sure that it was Sanghyuk that rooted him where he was then, but it was certainly the idea of learning more about him that made the thought of staying such a temptation.

 

Suddenly, with a burst of excitement, Hongbin insisted, “The wine!” But before he could make it far from where they sat, Jaehwan reached out for him and pulled him back down.

 

“Forget the wine,” he said, latched tightly to Hongbin. “Hakyeon left us some keys.”

 

“To where,” Taekwoon said, quite disinterested. He had taken to watching Sanghyuk’s hands as he picked delicately at the fringe of the quilt.

 

“There’s a billiards room down the road. Hakyeon’s auntie owns it or something or other.”

 

“Open for business?” Hongbin pestered.

 

“To us, sure.” It was impossible not to return the grin that Jaehwan showed. He was proud as anything to have access to such a large collection of liquors and beers and all the wines that any of them could think of. “We’ll have to leave the cash behind, that’s what he told me.”

 

So it was that the four of them dressed for the walk and went down from the trees towards the gravel road that had led them to the cabin. They walked in pairs. Jaehwan and Hongbin leading the way as Taekwoon took slow, leisurely steps to stay in stride with Sanghyuk who wandered aimlessly.

 

“Are you tired?” Taekwoon asked him.

 

“A bit.”

 

“You didn’t sleep at all?”

 

Sanghyuk shook his head. He bit his lips and looked much like a child scampering alongside everyone else.

 

“You look like something’s on your mind.” Taekwoon did not know if he ought to mention such a thing, but he wanted so badly to speak to Sanghyuk. He had wanted it since the morning, since the evening before if he was to be honest with himself; and to have it now and to see Sanghyuk so utterly quiet was more disheartening than he liked.

 

“Are you worried about something?”

 

“A little bit.”

 

They walked in silence for some time, before Sanghyuk offered an answer.

 

He said, “I’m thinking bout my father. He wasn’t in the best shape last I saw him.”

 

“I’ve heard a bit about him.”

 

“Do you remember him?”

 

Taekwoon said he did not. It pained him to say it, for Sanghyuk asked in a way that hinted that Taekwoon surely _must_ remember.

 

“Your mother used to write him letters during the war.”

  
Taekwoon looked at him, startled. “I didn’t know that.”

 

“He still keeps them around. They’re lovely letters. I bet she writes you lovely letters, too.”

 

The guilt returned, heady this time. “She does.”

 

With only kindness, in a voice so soft it barely rose above the cold, Sanghyuk asked, “Why did you leave the way you did?”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Without telling anyone.”

 

Taekwoon stopped walking. Sanghyuk stopped beside him. “Is that what you’re thinking about right now?”

 

“It’s only a question. You don’t—I mean, I was only asking. You don’t have to answer it.”

 

They reached the billiards room in silence, after what felt like a long time but could not have been more than fifteen minutes. It was cold inside. It was terribly dark. But once the lights came on and Hongbin managed to play the radio, it was not as bad as one might imagine.

 

Soon, all the sound in the world was the sound from that small, dark billiards room. The music played softly. The ice tinkled sharply in empty cups as liquor was poured. The wind outside rattled the windows ever so slightly, and all the time Taekwoon sat at the bar, a glass wrapped in one hand. He never looked away from Sanghyuk’s tired, tired face.

 

“What are you looking so depressed for?” Jaehwan said, already a little tipsy. His face glowed in the dim light; his hands were warm as they took Taekwoon’s face between them.

 

“I’m fine,” he said.

 

“Oh, _sure_.”

 

“Why don’t you go set up a game?”

 

Pleased by this, Jaehwan went away quickly, and Taekwoon—embarrassed at once—was glad to be without him. He left the bar and walked over to where Sanghyuk stood beside the windows, where it was especially cold. Their breath came out white as ghost-light in the dark.

 

“I left without telling anyone,” Taekwoon started, “because my mother wouldn’t approve of it. Not that it matters much anymore. If we go to war, we’ll all be going, but at the time… it was something I thought I really wanted.”

 

Sanghyuk stared into his untouched glass. The lines below his eyes creased deeply so he looked awfully haggard, and the bruise across his cheek looked darker in the bad lighting. He ought to have gone back to the cabin, Taekwoon knew right away; and he wanted, very suddenly, to take him back.

 

“I asked because it was such a big deal after you went.”

 

“I believe you,” said Taekwoon.

 

“It was all anyone talked about for a long time. Until word got back about where you went and how long you’d be gone.”

 

“Come sit with me.”

 

They took a table in a far corner, nearest the radio. It felt safer to be where it was loud; though, even over the rising waves of music, Jaehwan’s high-pitched laughter could be heard.

 

“I worry sometimes,” said Sanghyuk, “but, it isn’t a fear, so don’t think it is. It’s like… well, it’s just like a concern.”

 

“About what?”

 

“Well, that anyone that leaves and, you know, goes to the military… I get nervous they’ll all come back like he did.”

 

It took only a momentary pause for Taekwoon to collect his thoughts and realize with a small startle, who it was Sanghyuk meant. He could remember the weeks after war, when his own father had returned home, and how delicate a time it had been. He had not been himself. It was quite a stretch to say, even now, that Taekwoon’s father had returned to the man he had been before. But he was closer than he had ever been.

 

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Taekwoon said. He thought of when his father was afraid to leave the house. For days he would stow himself in bed. “I fly planes. I don’t do anything like they do on the ground.” His forehead creased with anxiety as he remembered the endless sea below him, how his squadron leader had said, sharply over the intercom, that if ever they were shot down over the water, it was better to be drowned than captured.

 

The song on the radio ended. Another started in its place. And across the bar came Jaehwan’s drunken call, full of laughter: “Taekwoonie, are you _coming—_?” He was leaning on a cue, Hongbin laughing beside him. “Bring little Hyukie over here! We’ll play pairs.”

 

And as simple as that, the shadow which had fallen over them was then lifted. But it remained in the dark of Taekwoon’s eyes. It was in the back of his mind. When he looked at Sanghyuk, laughing tiredly at something Hongbin had done, he wondered how right such a young boy could be.

  

 

 

 

It was dangerously close to two in the morning when, at last, Taekwoon decided for the four of them that they ought to get back. Jaehwan had stumbled over a chair. Hongbin had lost his sweater. They were a riling mess that Sanghyuk, so tired he was dizzy, but not drunk at all, felt lost within.

 

Taekwoon walked with Jaehwan’s arm strung over his shoulders. He walked in the front so it was Sanghyuk in the back with Hongbin stumbling along beside him. Eventually, and mostly because he cold not _stand_ the sound of the pebbles scraping the ground any longer, Sanghyuk took Hongbin’s hand and dragged him down the road. They had been quite left in the dark. Up ahead was Taekwoon, covering double the amount of ground even with Jaehwan hanging desperately off him.

 

“I’m gonna miss you when you go back,” Hongbin said, dreamily. “I mean _him—_ not, not you,” he corrected. “But not just him, but _them_.”

 

“I get it.”

 

“I don’t think Jaehwan will go back, though. What do you think?”

 

Sanghyuk said he was not sure. But he had had much the same thought. It was in the way Jaehwan never smiled without looking pained; and how his eyes gleamed so drastically close to the edge of hysteria.

 

“He’ll be all right,” Sanghyuk said, more for himself than anyone else. But Hongbin took it and ran. He agreed that, yes, Jaehwan would be all right. Taekwoon would be, too. But wasn’t it scary?, he said. Just the idea of it all?

 

*

 

They came up to the cabin shortly after the door had been shut. Inside, Taekwoon put Jaehwan on the sofa. He put the cushions behind his head. He wrapped him in quilts from the hallway closet.

 

“I’m not a baby,” Sanghyuk heard Jaehwan say. “Don’t treat me like one.”

 

It was the last thing Jaehwan said that night—or the last that Sanghyuk had heard—and soon he was asleep with all the cushions placed round him like a cradle. In a chair by the window, Hongbin had curled himself small with a book open, unread, in his lap. It was no time at all before he was asleep.

 

“Smoke?” Taekwoon offered quietly lest he disturb the others. He had pulled a cigarette pack from his coat and held it out for Sanghyuk to take. And together the two sat on the deck, where the wind blew sharp against their cold faces. All around them was the sound of the leaves, rustling in the deep quiet.

 

“Hard to believe you came back only yesterday.”

 

“It is, isn’t it?”

 

Sanghyuk adjusted his coat, wrapping it tightly round his body. He was cold and he did not want the cigarette, but he wanted badly to be with Taekwoon. He was glad, in a way, that the others had gone.

 

Remembering what Jaehwan had said earlier in the evening, Sanghyuk asked, rather boldly, “What changed your mind?”

 

Taekwoon looked at him in question.

 

“About staying longer,” he said.

 

And how startling it was, then, that Taekwoon, without pause, without looking away, said, very seriously, “I like talking to you. If I stay longer, then I can talk with you more.”

 

The wind carried his words up and up so that all remained was Sanghyuk’s surprise.

 

“I _do_ have to leave, though,” Taekwoon said, turning away. “Eventually. But you know that. You’ll be back in school by then anyway, but maybe—oh, I don’t know. Maybe after the new year, I’ll come home again for a little while.”

 

Sanghyuk edged slightly closer. All the thoughts within his head whirled like stars. They were alight with a fire that threatened to burn him. He wanted to reach for Taekwoon. He wanted to touch him. To kiss him, even, if he so allowed it.

 

“What if you can’t make it back?” Sanghyuk whispered.

 

“I’ll come back.”

 

“And if the war happens?”

 

There was a pause. And then, “I’ll still come back.”

 

It was impossible to know such a thing. They were not stupid boys, but they were happy in that moment. And so they allowed such a thing to be said with child-like certainty.

 

“Think you could wait around a little while?”

 

With a lightness in his head, the cold forgotten, Sanghyuk edged ever closer and rest his head on Taekwoon’s shoulder. He said that, yes, he probably could.

 

 

 

❝ _Each night before you go to sleep, my baby_

_ Whisper a little prayer for me, my baby _

_ And tell all the stars above,  _

_**This is dedicated to the one I love**  _❞

— The Mamas & The Papas

**Author's Note:**

> song inspirations:  
> [[three](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l44_n60QQ8)]


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